The Chris Gonyea Project

I would like to make an iPhone feature request. Who knows if anyone at Apple will listen, but here goes nothing.

• I have my home button setup to show the limited iPod controls (pause, previous track, next track, close, iPod) when pressing it twice. What a fantastic little hidden feature! It would be even better if you could rate songs on this screen, so you don’t have to wait for the full screen iPod application to load (thus closing whatever you have open).

I know a few weeks ago, I said that the iPhone plans were overpriced. Ok, that is putting it mildly…I flipped out. I also said I could not get one until December due to my Verizon Wireless contract.

Yet yesterday, my wife and i purchased two iPhones. Yes, you read this right, we bought two iPhones. What gives? That is about as close to a flip flop as you can get.

Alright, I have to go to my defense on this one. A few factors are at play here:

1. My wife’s 2G iPod mini is on its last legs and showing signs of dying. That means shelling out at least $150 for a new iPod to replace it.
2. My 2G iPod nano is starting to act flakey (freezing when trying to play a song for example), with firmware restores not helping.  That means shelling out another $150.
3. We hated our cell phones with a passion. They were not due to be replaced until December though.
4. I have issues at times remembering appointments, events, etc. that I agreed to attend. I really need my calendar with me. I hate paper calendars…I lose them all the time, forget to bring them with me, or just forget to use them.
5. Some phone called the iPhone came out with a new model. You have may have heard about it.
6. I worked out the budget to pull off using an iPhone family plan. Am I completely happy about it paying this much for a plan? No, but we determined it would be worth it.

Backups are always a touchy subject. I can’t remember how many times I have listened to a frantic phone call, with a person on the other end near the point of the tears…all over the fact their photos from <insert trip> were on what is now a dead hard drive. The first thing I ask is do they have a backup. 99% of the time, the answer is a flat out no. The excuses are wide ranging. Some people just never bought an external hard drive or took a few hours to burn 5 DVD’s worth of data. Others have the external hard drive, but remember to plug it in maybe twice a year. Still others manage to backup often, but forget to take a copy offsite prior to a major fire.

Apple’s Time Capsule and Microsoft’s Windows Home Server are finally filling part of a huge void that has been there since the beginning of the personal computer age. Both allow you to setup automated backups so you don’t have to manually start them. Basically, set it up once and let them do the rest. However, both take wildly different routes to reach this outcome.

Microsoft went the route of saying ever home needs its own server. Microsoft’s solution goes all out, offering everything from backups to remote access of data to even remotely controlling your computer. It is as if it was a true server in some company data center. The trouble of course is not everyone needs all of this, most people would be quite content with a simple device that does backups. You have to power what is essentially a desktop computer or even a server depending on how powerful the machine is. What if you turn off the server and forget to turn it back on? No more backups. Plus there is higher electric bills, higher complexity, more chances for things to go wrong. Oh yeah, a high price tag too. However, you gain a very powerful server, that offers amazing features and capabilities. It sounds like a must buy for any Windows power user. For your casual Windows user though? I believe it is way overkill. I don’t picture my grandparents buying one of these.

Apple went their classic route of simplier = better. Inside a small square box that isn’t even an inch tall, you have an internal hard drive and your wireless router. Just one device to power (there isn’t even an external power brick, just a simple power cord), no separate server. If it is off, you will know it, since the Internet won’t work as well. As long as your Mac’s are online and configured to backup to it, every hour Time Machine will silently backup the latest changes to the Time Capsule. If you ever need to restore something, a simple launch of Time Machine will let you browse around to the exact date and file you want to restore. Setting up Time Capsule was very simple. A few clicks and everything was working.

Time Capsule is perfect for your typical home user who needs backups without any hassle. I highly recommend it, despite myself being a classic power user. I just want backups to work, without intervention from me. The initial backup took awhile (I highly recommend using ethernet for the first backup), but the hourly backups work fine, even with a Mac that uses Wireless-G. A little slow, but it still works. That is all we care about, right?

Now the only backups I need to worry about is bringing an occassional one off-site to guard against fire or theft.

Just about every AppleScript possible for iTunes can be found at Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes. One I just tried and worked brilliantly is Super Remove Dead Tracks. Another one I use on occasion is Make Bookmarkable, which is fantastic for those of you who rip audiobooks from CD’s and would like to put them in the Audiobooks section of iTunes.

This is a plug and a worthy one at that. If you have any interest in baseball, subscribe to the RSS feed for the fantastic MLBTradeRumors.com blog. These guys are the masters of tracking down every rumor of any remotely possible trade in Major League Baseball, even at the minor league level. They seriously must watch every paper in the USA. They have been right on top of the C.C. Sabathia rumors since day one and are even providing multiple updates the past few hours as the trade nears completion.